Getting Ready for Surgery #1

Today Wyatt had an appointment at the cleft clinic. We met with the team coordinator, surgeon and the orthodontist. Wyatt's scheduled for surgery on February 6th. Part of what they wanted to do today was talk about if the orthodontist could still make progress closing the gap in his dental ridge. If the orthodontist thought she could still make progress in closing the gap we would move out his surgery. There hasn't been any progress in closing the gap since December so they have decided to go ahead with the surgery as planned on February 6th.

The lip adhesion in February will basically just close the lip. They probably won't do anything with the dental ridge or palate at this time. The surgeon said doing a lip adhesion (basically just stitching the lip together for now) will make for better results when he does the lip repair at 6 months. There will be less tension and better results with scarring and evening out the lip.

Here is some more info I found online about lip adhesions:



Lip adhesion is performed within the first few days and weeks of life as a preliminary procedure, with definitive cleft repair delayed to a later date. The purpose of lip adhesion is to convert a wide complete cleft to an incomplete cleft and allow tissue growth during the delay phase and to provide additional reconstructive tissue. In addition, the lip adhesion is thought to act as an orthodontic appliance that improves the alignment of the maxillary arches and narrows the alveolar defect.

Lip adhesion is performed by creating medially and laterally based flaps (typically rectangular) from the margin of the cleft and suturing them together to create a bridge over the cleft.

Wyatt's lip adhesion will take about 45 minutes and he will have to stay in the hospital overnight. They just like to keep an eye on these little babies because sometimes with the anesthesia they can stop breathing. We won't have to do anything special with feeding but he will have to wear No No's (arm restraints that look like a cast for each arm) for 10 days so he doesn't hurt anything by sticking his fingers in his mouth.

That is all I know for now! After 2 hours at the clinic today Wyatt and I were pretty tired.